In the never ending cycle of dating disasters that characterise the last five or so years of my life I have noted one constant- the men i meet are in firm denial that they are in fact adults. Some choose to obscure this with the trappings of an adult life- a stable home, an adult job, older wiser friends and so on...Others go further and lead the lives of 60 year old retirees- the TV guide has become their bible. I suppose the 'new horizons' residents are truer to their inner child- given that life is supposed to be circular, or whatever. Anyway, wherever they are apparently situated on the age by activity continuum peter pan still seems to be their guru. I'm talking about emotional maturity, self-awareness, perpective and other stuff that is supposed to accompany the development of human beings- which hasn't really been there with the 'blokes' I've met. The forties are the new thirties are the new twenties- have those years of character building been politely excused with the invigorated identity of forty year olds?! After that there's the mid-life crisis anyway and life expectancy is on the up and up.
All I can say is I think i give up!
goodnight friends..
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
corporate whore
I have recently started working for a major project management company (they are going to be managing redevelopment of the Carlton United Brewery on Broadway, a big fucking deal, and yes, they are going to be keeping both the Clare and the Abercrombie hotels) and I'm currently supporting the team responsible for rolling out many orange-and-white Banks across Australia. I work in a Clarence St skyscraper (going to the 27th floor ultra-corporate reception is like visiting another planet) smack bang in the middle of the financial district, but main office is north of the bridge (of which it has an excellent view).
Last night involved drinks at a lovely pub, tab and nibbles (and my taxi home) courtesy of The Bank. It was my first time actually having to mingle with the sort of people who'd been blissfully snapped up by those corporate graduate programs post finance-and-accounting degrees and I felt like an alien, fleeing to the comfort zone of the designers. They accepted me as I was, a confused psych graduate with mean filing and touch typing skills, and we munched happily on our hummus and sipped the (bloody great) Merlot. They encouraged me to take up design. I don't know if I'm ready for another degree and an extra 12K HECS debt.
What the fuck is finance anyway? It's not economics, it's not accounting, you don't actually work in a bank, you work in a tower and you look at spreadsheets. WHAT. DO. THEY. DO. I sit near one of the MANY finance departments of The Bank and last week overheard the following:
"Hello, Finance. Lucy speaking."
[insert bank-speak blather]
Lucy: "Well, 11 million minus four million is about seven million, so..."
me: "What the fuuuuuuuuuck"
[insert inane bank-speak dialogue]
Lucy: "Yeah. So just send it through and..."
[more blather]
I also sit near a bunch of people who appear to do NOTHING but talk about investing all day, including one very short man who talks so loudly on his mobile phone ("HI BARRY YEAH I GOT THAT EMAIL YOU CCD ME IN ON AND I THINK WE SHOULD MOVE FORWARD") my boss threatens to kill him. Then there's the internal auditors who are very quiet and seem scared of us, but one guy makes really subtle hilarious jokes and you almost miss them because they're delivered in this perfect monotone. And then there's the Other staff, and I can't figure out what they do, besides wear extremely ugly Bank uniforms, eat catering and bugger up the lifts because they can't all fit in one at the same time.
Only there two days a week and they've already offered me a raise (where I come from, NGO and NFP organisations, this is fucking unheard of) so I'm honestly considering going full time. In this weird way the whole insane Bank world is keeping me sane because it's just so hilarious.
Last night involved drinks at a lovely pub, tab and nibbles (and my taxi home) courtesy of The Bank. It was my first time actually having to mingle with the sort of people who'd been blissfully snapped up by those corporate graduate programs post finance-and-accounting degrees and I felt like an alien, fleeing to the comfort zone of the designers. They accepted me as I was, a confused psych graduate with mean filing and touch typing skills, and we munched happily on our hummus and sipped the (bloody great) Merlot. They encouraged me to take up design. I don't know if I'm ready for another degree and an extra 12K HECS debt.
What the fuck is finance anyway? It's not economics, it's not accounting, you don't actually work in a bank, you work in a tower and you look at spreadsheets. WHAT. DO. THEY. DO. I sit near one of the MANY finance departments of The Bank and last week overheard the following:
"Hello, Finance. Lucy speaking."
Lucy: "Well, 11 million minus four million is about seven million, so..."
me:
[insert inane bank-speak dialogue]
Lucy: "Yeah. So just send it through and..."
[more blather]
I also sit near a bunch of people who appear to do NOTHING but talk about investing all day, including one very short man who talks so loudly on his mobile phone ("HI BARRY YEAH I GOT THAT EMAIL YOU CCD ME IN ON AND I THINK WE SHOULD MOVE FORWARD") my boss threatens to kill him. Then there's the internal auditors who are very quiet and seem scared of us, but one guy makes really subtle hilarious jokes and you almost miss them because they're delivered in this perfect monotone. And then there's the Other staff, and I can't figure out what they do, besides wear extremely ugly Bank uniforms, eat catering and bugger up the lifts because they can't all fit in one at the same time.
Only there two days a week and they've already offered me a raise (where I come from, NGO and NFP organisations, this is fucking unheard of) so I'm honestly considering going full time. In this weird way the whole insane Bank world is keeping me sane because it's just so hilarious.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Shared accommodation nightmares: reflections of a contemplative mind
I am writing to you from beyond the nether regions of this world, in other words Canberra, and even though I am stuck here in this bubble of public service, there are some commonalities, some universal truths that have proceeded on from my residency in Sydney. I am talking of the flat/housemate. Now some of you may have had the good fortune of living with a very splendid flatmate, one who doesn’t bother you, who is tidy but not too clean, thoughtful and so on. I however continue to find myself in flatmate hell, both in Sydney and now Canberra.
There I was, sitting quietly at home last night, snuggled up on my plush sofa, reading a book and nursing a deliciously sweet, mug of hot chocolate topped with an assortment of pink and white marshmallows (wow I should be in advertising). These are the moments that I relish and I was not, as you can imagine, keen on chatting about silly nothings. Do you know what she said, this ultimate pain in the ass flatmate? “You seem really stand-offish” and proceeded to make a face and laugh. What the hell am I suppose to do with that kind of comment? Really it was designed to make me feel bad. It worked and before I knew it, I had said sorry, for being me. Damn her, can I not just exist, what am I her entertainment? It’s not my fault she doesn’t get along with anybody here and thus has no one else to talk to.
Hence you can understand my predicament. Some of you may still be living at home, bless you, and others may be veterans of the nightmare that is shared accommodation. But this is something everyone will experience at some point or other. We are social creatures and we like being around people, but enjoying our own company is a healthy thing to do. Some people are so frightened of this and will thus do their best to avoid it, terrified of themselves. These people are usually the extroverted type (I said usually, don’t get defensive) and just won’t shut up. Imagine what amazing theories and ideas you could come up with if you just shut up and spent five minutes a day in contemplation. The most famous of all artists and theorists of our time tended to be deep thinkers and were commonly depressive personalities. This is of course the extreme of cases, and should not be used as an excuse to be an ass. But they were onto something, in thought you can potentially tap into a fountain of creative ideas that exists within the subconscious, and I believe one can only do this in solitude.
But what to do about clingy flatmates? They are as bad as a clingy partner and nothing you can say will change this, the best thing I can recommend is the next time your flatmate says something stupid like mine did, take a few seconds to think, get up and move your ass to your bedroom for some solitude and deep thought on how best to murder your housemate and make it look like an accident.
There I was, sitting quietly at home last night, snuggled up on my plush sofa, reading a book and nursing a deliciously sweet, mug of hot chocolate topped with an assortment of pink and white marshmallows (wow I should be in advertising). These are the moments that I relish and I was not, as you can imagine, keen on chatting about silly nothings. Do you know what she said, this ultimate pain in the ass flatmate? “You seem really stand-offish” and proceeded to make a face and laugh. What the hell am I suppose to do with that kind of comment? Really it was designed to make me feel bad. It worked and before I knew it, I had said sorry, for being me. Damn her, can I not just exist, what am I her entertainment? It’s not my fault she doesn’t get along with anybody here and thus has no one else to talk to.
Hence you can understand my predicament. Some of you may still be living at home, bless you, and others may be veterans of the nightmare that is shared accommodation. But this is something everyone will experience at some point or other. We are social creatures and we like being around people, but enjoying our own company is a healthy thing to do. Some people are so frightened of this and will thus do their best to avoid it, terrified of themselves. These people are usually the extroverted type (I said usually, don’t get defensive) and just won’t shut up. Imagine what amazing theories and ideas you could come up with if you just shut up and spent five minutes a day in contemplation. The most famous of all artists and theorists of our time tended to be deep thinkers and were commonly depressive personalities. This is of course the extreme of cases, and should not be used as an excuse to be an ass. But they were onto something, in thought you can potentially tap into a fountain of creative ideas that exists within the subconscious, and I believe one can only do this in solitude.
But what to do about clingy flatmates? They are as bad as a clingy partner and nothing you can say will change this, the best thing I can recommend is the next time your flatmate says something stupid like mine did, take a few seconds to think, get up and move your ass to your bedroom for some solitude and deep thought on how best to murder your housemate and make it look like an accident.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
I have an urget vent to projectile vomit on y'all.
It is the sylistic equivalent of a garbage truck- neo rave fashion! There seems to be a particular attachment for the last tedious expanse of time to over the top adornment. By over the top I do not simply mean excessive accesorising- although that comes into it. What I am talking about here is this look: shimmery leggings with a metallic print, oversised fluro tie-dye tee, 80's geo print bomber in rainbow colours, big earrings with some cassette tapes dangling off them and awful hi top trainers. Naturally cheap plastic chains etc must be worn on the neck. Boys might wear hot pink shorts and a t-shirt with an owl on it and some large serial killer glasses.
This 'statement' may have been interesting in early 90's japan, or perhaps even more recently in london; but when stupid sydney kids appropriate it it drives me demented. I am asserting a provincialist discourse or anything- but quite frankly this so called 'ironic' display perpetuates post-colonial dissemination and unites clutters of utter fools, scattering through the ether. It is almost certainly about display and status- those who rest beneath the clothes tend to have a characteristically ill-derived ego. They may have been the geek in glass for years- but now they can do shitloads of cocaine and prance around and feel some kind of clustering self-fulfilment. It groses me out to the max, because generally these kids have emerged from some kind of sheltered, conservative upbringing and it is almost like they feel their clothes make them stand in relief against this. They don't understand subtlety; they do apathy well and all the while pretend to give a shit about the world. Life does not have to be a mechanised routine of performance and display- the most interesting people often blend in through their understated elegance and come into relief for those with a more refined set of aesthetic principles.
Bring back classic dressing i say- round up the fluro and put it into the kind of unnatural toxic waste dump it belongs.
It is the sylistic equivalent of a garbage truck- neo rave fashion! There seems to be a particular attachment for the last tedious expanse of time to over the top adornment. By over the top I do not simply mean excessive accesorising- although that comes into it. What I am talking about here is this look: shimmery leggings with a metallic print, oversised fluro tie-dye tee, 80's geo print bomber in rainbow colours, big earrings with some cassette tapes dangling off them and awful hi top trainers. Naturally cheap plastic chains etc must be worn on the neck. Boys might wear hot pink shorts and a t-shirt with an owl on it and some large serial killer glasses.
This 'statement' may have been interesting in early 90's japan, or perhaps even more recently in london; but when stupid sydney kids appropriate it it drives me demented. I am asserting a provincialist discourse or anything- but quite frankly this so called 'ironic' display perpetuates post-colonial dissemination and unites clutters of utter fools, scattering through the ether. It is almost certainly about display and status- those who rest beneath the clothes tend to have a characteristically ill-derived ego. They may have been the geek in glass for years- but now they can do shitloads of cocaine and prance around and feel some kind of clustering self-fulfilment. It groses me out to the max, because generally these kids have emerged from some kind of sheltered, conservative upbringing and it is almost like they feel their clothes make them stand in relief against this. They don't understand subtlety; they do apathy well and all the while pretend to give a shit about the world. Life does not have to be a mechanised routine of performance and display- the most interesting people often blend in through their understated elegance and come into relief for those with a more refined set of aesthetic principles.
Bring back classic dressing i say- round up the fluro and put it into the kind of unnatural toxic waste dump it belongs.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
office unrest..
Given that Sam has recently shared her Canberra dweeb experiences; I thought I would share my Sydney ones too.
As my readers probably know, I work at a university where the general standard of clothed bodies is horrifically base.
Dweebs exist across all sectors on campus: from the lowly cleaning clerk who is forced into a navy blue prison uniform; to the highest echelons of the executive staff, where pre-pressed chino trousers reign supreme. Somewhere in the middle the student body settle- the dweeb-iest of these roam around in ill fitting short and polo combos. Accompanying the dweebs around everywhere (no matter their station) is an irritatingly nasal voice and sometimes a snotty nose without tissues. SNIFF! I have also noted that untrimmed facial hair is a common denominator (male or female).
I am thinking of weeding out all the dweebs and sending them on to Sam in canberra- she seems pretty savvy with their elimination. We'll keep you posted.
xo
As my readers probably know, I work at a university where the general standard of clothed bodies is horrifically base.
Dweebs exist across all sectors on campus: from the lowly cleaning clerk who is forced into a navy blue prison uniform; to the highest echelons of the executive staff, where pre-pressed chino trousers reign supreme. Somewhere in the middle the student body settle- the dweeb-iest of these roam around in ill fitting short and polo combos. Accompanying the dweebs around everywhere (no matter their station) is an irritatingly nasal voice and sometimes a snotty nose without tissues. SNIFF! I have also noted that untrimmed facial hair is a common denominator (male or female).
I am thinking of weeding out all the dweebs and sending them on to Sam in canberra- she seems pretty savvy with their elimination. We'll keep you posted.
xo
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